


Some Kind of Torture

by Shaeydyrllah



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Alternate reboot of #802, Angst, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Humor, Michael loves Eleanor, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,921
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27567061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaeydyrllah/pseuds/Shaeydyrllah
Summary: "There had to be a rational explanation for why Eleanor Shellstrop unravelled the worlds he created around her, just as surely as he was the one to initiate the reboots."An alternate take on reboot #802, where Michael decides to team up with only Eleanor.
Relationships: Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	Some Kind of Torture

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cecret](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cecret/gifts).



> So, I never thought I'd be writing for this fandom. So getting their voices right was a bit of a challenge. My ideas for Michael's perception of Eleanor's emotions stem from Cecret's amazing fic 'Synesthesia.' Go read it, it is beautiful.

“Attempt #802.” Michael let out a deep sigh, letting his legs fall from the desk, haphazardly covered in pieces of paper. He raised a hand to dispel the festering tension in the room; the Architect briefly considered allowing it to coalesce in the seat where the infuriating human would sit but dismissed the idea just as quickly.

Allowing Eleanor to seep in his cast-off tension would be like letting someone bathe in used bathwater, which was only really used in water guns department to torment humans with OCD cleanliness obsessions, he’d moved past such pettiness.

“The pivotal point, at which Eleanor stops being an effective tormentor to the other humans, coincides with her progress in ethics. Chidi’s influence seems to inspire guilt and what’s it called? The one where you care about others and help them to your own detriment. Loyalty! That’s right, loyalty. Useless emotions that won’t actually lead to any kind of redemption.” He paused the tape for a long moment.

Eleanor’s behaviour was very confusing; she had proven time and time again, her willingness to confess she didn’t belong in the Good Place, to save him from Retirement, to save Chidi from his moral aneurysms. Logically, getting the Architect out of the way could only lead to a reduction in suspicion falling on her.

Guilt. Loyalty.

Foreign concepts to him. He’d launch any one of the Bad Place employees into the sun and dance on their ashes if it furthered his goals. Hey, he’d reconstruct their forms from the ashes and do it all over again just for fun. Especially if it was that little upstart, Vicky.

Eleanor was supposed to be a monster like him.

Selfish. Dismissive of consequences.

Forking humans, they were supposed to make each other worse, not insipidly moral. There were thousands of philosophers and martyrs downstairs, (or more accurately to the left and hopscotch till morning) not a moment of their tortured pursuit of knowledge or pleas for forgiveness had resulted in a reprieve.

There was no such thing as forgiveness. You’re a bad person or a good person. Michael knew which side he fell on, it was the same side as Eleanor Shellstrop.

With a click, the tape resumed. “What she needs is a different kind of influence, a new basis for comparison.”

There’s a soft tap on his door. All of the nerves contained in his skin suit suddenly felt itchy, like that time Deborah from Disembowelment and Spin Class decided to demonstrate her new method for blood-chilli transfusions on him.

Good times.

Bad times

_Whatever._

A Placid smile slid across his face, it felt unnatural to use muscles that way. Why did humans have such a vast array of emotions connoted by minute muscle twitches with so little variation?

The human peered around the door, wide-eyed and curious, a deceptively innocent facade that hid the conniving monster underneath. He could remember the way his suit’s chest tightened, wrapped under layers of scalding squid within a dry-too-few-limbed-suit, the amorphous culmination of his essence had bubbled and twisted in a completely novel way when he knew she had realised she was in the Bad Place.

Describing what it felt like to wear a human-suit was beginning to sound far too much like that crazy churro dog concoction that Eleanor adored.

There was a glint in her calculating eyes. Her colours flashed sporadically, blazing to a similar hue as the colour When-A-Child-Realises-Their-Parents-Are-Wrong-About-Something-For-The-First-Time, before settling back to a stubborn muddy yellow. Her words left a triumphant burn on the surface of his skin, where they normally left a not-completely-abhorrent tingle.

Enough about Eleanor.

“Hi Eleanor,” he beckoned her forwards, temporarily blinded by that muddy yellowness that sizzled beneath his eyelids and swirled with that common cousin of pink (Curiosity-About-Where-Babies-Come-From). Trying to perceive humans in all their horrifying glory had never translated well with the weak gooey eyes and the snappable optic nerves of their skin-suits. There was something else about them, something _human_ that translated incorrectly in his multidimensional senses.

“Come on in.”

~0~

“Hey buddy, I’ve brought all kinds of fun stuff for us to do.” Eleanor chimed as she waltzed into the room. She regarded him curiously, a soft frown marred her forehead as she took in his curled up position on the office floor.

She dropped whatever gadgets she had been holding and knelt down so she was at eye level, crawling on all fours like the apes her kind were descended from before the Judge decided to hit random on the special features button and exchanged their hairiness for a modicum more cognitive abilities.

“Whatcha doing?” At his unresponsive groan, she pulled his head into her lap. For a moment he was offended that she was treating him like a stray cat, but her fingers combing through his hair caused a strong aroma of violets to invade his nose and pleasant splashes of sunshine to flicker through his trans-integrated-synapses. He could put up with the indignity of it if only to convince her they were bonding in a meaningful way.

“I thought we’d moved past this slump.” She continued, her voice duplicitously sweet, “Please tell me you haven’t been counting, I dunno....toenail clippings.” She ignored his shudder of revulsion as he was reminded of the effusive waste produced by human bodies, constantly leaking and shedding. “I knew this one guy that lived in my apartment complex that collected his own nail clippings and made a collage of them, you would not believe who he sent it to...”

“ **I knew what the problem was from the very beginning**.” The words rolled off his tongue too eagerly, he hadn’t even turned his head around to gauge her expression, but he could already feel shock and Desperate-Fleeting-Chance-I Haven’t-Been-Caught radiating off her.

Michael pulled himself from her unresisting arms, still frozen in poorly concealed horror beneath her fake smile. He brought his knees up to his chest in a sitting position and curled his arms around his legs. “It’s me; I’m the one causing the neighbourhood to malfunction.” He placed his head in his hands as he continued with the same old tirade that felt as dull as Chidi’s thesis. “I tried to force Jianyu into opening up, which caused a sinkhole to open up. I kicked a puppy into the sun, and garbage rained down. It’s very obvious what the common denominator is; I knew you’d be able to work it out eventually, so I thought I’d save you the trouble. There’s no point hiding anymore.”

Eleanor’s colours lighted to an almost Wow-I-Just-Managed-To-Catch-My-Train shade before clouding over to a Wait-That-Waitress-Hasn’t-Brought-Me-A-Bowl-For-The-Free-All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet. “Dude that’s crazy, none of those things are your fault, maybe it’s a glitch.” She offered before pausing thoughtfully, “Or Tahani, Tahani was _way_ more invested in forcing Jianyu to open up.”

Michael shook his head slowly, hiding an amused grin beneath his hands, “No, it’s definitely me. I can’t keep up the lie any longer. Not after you called me your friend.” He removed his hand to watch the way that the human’s nose scrunched up in bewilderment. “The truth is, I shouldn’t be here, I’m not really a Good Place Architect.”

That was probably the most honest thing he’d ever told her.

As Chandler from Friends said: _it’s always better to **lie** than to have the complicated discussion._

She smelled like peppermint and confusion, Michael could see her brain churning away, making sense of this new information, except not literally, human brains were gross and only slightly more aesthetically pleasing when roasted on a pike and made into s’mores in front of the human in question.

“If you’re not a Good Place Architect, what are you?” She didn’t seem fearful yet, in fact, her shoulders were no longer full of tension and there was an oddly conspiratorial hush to her words. “Are you actually God, I thought you told me God didn’t exist. Does this make me one of your new disciples, like a younger hotter Kate Moss look-a-like disciple?”

“You _are_ my friend?” He added a note of anxiety to his voice, perhaps he’d overshot it and dipped straight into mortal peril, it was hard to tell. “No matter what I tell you, I can trust you to keep it a secret, right?”

Michael watched as she bit her lip; echoing the words she had spoken to Chidi in an attempt to convince him to help her, _it should hopefully be enough._ He hadn’t mimicked it word for word, that would be too suspicious. His acting skills were excellent, thank you very much, Vicky. He waited until her colours changed to Sleepover-At-The-Popular-Girl’s-House.

She had to be lonely, among so many seemingly perfect people. Always inferior, always hiding. Jason didn’t really have the same drive to compare his self worth to others. It wasn’t as fun to play games with the Floridian DJ, who he could only hope to confuse at best.

Here he was, the prospect of a tantalising secret, and begging her to allow him to confide.

Ego bloomed across the colours around her oddly shaped human head like a bruise.

_Gotcha._

“Of course, you can trust me.”

He nodded slowly, uncoiling from his stupor, “The truth is, I’m really a Bad Place Architect. My goal from the beginning has been to torture everyone here in this neighbourhood.”

~0~

“Eleanor seems to be taking the confession well. It’s only a matter of time before she confides in me about _her_ true identity. Is it really that easy to earn a human’s trust, by faking vulnerability?” The Architect let out a short laugh. “It will take some time, but I really do think I can get her on board with this whole torture shtick. The Dress-Bench incident alone was proof that this kind of thing would be right up her alley.”

Michael stared at the door silently for a long moment, half expecting Eleanor to come barging in again with no consideration for his privacy.

“She doesn’t deserve a break, but taking her off the chessboard will hopefully mean I can keep the experiment going.”

~0~

“Ugh, Chidi is literally driving me insane.” Eleanor threw herself down in the seat opposite him, glaring down mutinously at her frozen yoghurt. ‘Good-Hair-Day’ was a new flavour he had been experimenting with, but it would seem that Eleanor wasn’t appreciating it, from the way she was stabbing at the container with her plastic spoon. “He thinks I’m not taking his boring Ethic’s lectures seriously. I mean, it’s bad enough I had to learn about _Utilitarianism_ but the fact that there are two types.” She made a sound of disgust, looking up at Michael in the hope he would agree, “Act or Rule, I don’t give a shirt. Just stick to one, am I right?”

“Why exactly are you letting Chidi give you ethics lessons? It’s not like you need it.” Michael commented, drily. “Fake paradise aside, _surely_ helping all those starving children is proof enough of your moral worth. Not to mention saving that congresswoman from her would-be rapist.”

He watched with interest as she went rigid, her yoghurt pot fell to the ground. **Littering was minus-fifteen points.**

“This whole fake-paradise thing,” she waved a hand, gesturing to the town square and its assorted frozen yoghurt shops. “How did a Bad Place Architect even manage to ‘steal’ three-hundred odd souls that were meant for the Good Place?”

Internally he was already tacking on an **additional fifty points** for her use of air-quotes.

Michael gave her a chiding look and indicated she should lower her voice. Glancing furtively over his shoulder, he responded quietly, “All it took was procuring the skin-suit of an actual Good Place Architect, the...shall we say... _good side_ have a tendency to be overly trusting. Can you believe that they bought my excuse, that I had a cold?” He shook his head patronisingly, “As if that would account for a whole personality change. Architects don’t even get sick.”

“And they just leave you to do what you want with the humans under your care?” Eleanor asked incredulously. A sharp lemony tang hit his nose. **Disapproval.** He was losing her.

“Like I said, they’re a bunch of dummies.” Her colours swirled violently for a moment, uncertain. “Look around you Eleanor, do you think everyone in this neighbourhood who lived such wonderful lives, truly deserves better than everyone else?”

Of course, they did; if they were actually good people, it wouldn’t be his job to torture them.

He caught her hand in his own, the skin around her nails was a raw shade of pink where she’d been picking and chewing at it. It was vile and oh so _human_. The digits in his hands had been her mouth, a wet cavern full of disgusting fluids. Yet the warmth radiating from her skin wasn’t the worst thing in the world, nor was the way she squeezed his hand. “There’s only so many times you can make Hitler eat his own pets. And there were so _many_ humans like Tahani that were destined for the Good Place, for charity work she didn’t even _care_ about. What does it matter in the end who gets tortured?”

Eleanor pulled her hand away sharply. He didn’t know what to think of the loss of her closeness. “Here’s a hot take, how about not torturing anyone?”

Michael rolled his eyes at her. It was a strange sensation. He decided to do it again. _No, definitely a bad sensation._ Why did humans do it all the time?

“It’s my job to torture humans. Not torturing humans would be like Monica living like a slob, or Ross deciding to not be a _Nice Guy-Trademark_.”

“Did you just say the word ‘Trademark’ out loud?”

He waved a hand dismissively, “I digress. It’s not like I pulled this operation off alone. There are a handful of Bad Place employees here, smoothing things over. There’s no one you could even report this too.”

Eleanor’s colours shifted to an I-Accidentally-Locked-My-Boss-In-His-Office-And-Blamed-It-On-My-Co-Worker tone. “So there’s more of your kind here, like actual demons running the neighbourhood. Is Tahani one of them?” She tapped her chin thoughtfully, “I knew no one could be that perfect.”

“Firstly, I’ve already mentioned that Tahani was a soul meant for the Good Place, Secondly _demon_ is a bit of a racist term...”

“Shut up actual-Satan!” For someone demonstrating worry over the prospect of being tortured by ‘demons’, she was still awfully blasé about insulting them. “You and your buddies of a yet-to-be-determined-number have kidnapped us and decided to torture us for fun.” She frowned, “Or work, work isn’t usually fun. Would you say this is a fun job?”

Michael shrugged, “To begin with. Now it kind of bums me out with all this monotonous repetition.” He aimed to drastically soften his demeanour, even though she had a reputation for not caring about other people, she seemed highly offended about the injustice of the situation. “Originally, I tried to make you believe there was something wrong with you. I made shrimps fly in the sky and Ariana Grande blast through the neighbourhood after I saw you mix up Chidi’s name and overindulge in shrimp. But over time, I began to think of you as my friend, I didn’t want to torture you anymore.”

He blinked in surprise at the look of triumph on her face. “Ha, suck it Chidi, the shrimp thing wasn’t my fault after all.” Eleanor flushed slightly in embarrassment at her over-enthusiastic reaction, “Whatever, I can indulge in as much shrimp as I want in the afterlife if I was such a saint on Earth.” She then pointed a finger at him, “Also that whole friendship speech you gave was super lame, the _power of friendship_ made an evil demon decide to give up on torture. I don’t think so.”

A con-artist could recognise another con-artist.

He just had to be careful what lies he fed her.

“Really Eleanor,” he responded softly, “We had fun together, didn’t we? You seem different from the other humans here. It felt like we actually connected.”

The Architect watched the human noticeably swallow, what a strange reaction to stress it was, to engage part of the body designed to aid in transportation and digestion of food.

How did it make her feel to be told that a so-called-demon felt they could relate to her?

“I don’t know what to tell you, man. I’m just that good, that I befriended a demon.” She laughed nervously. “And since we’re _friends_ , despite my _goodness_ , you’re not going to torture me, right?”

“No, not you. But I still have to torture the others.”

“But I’ll be fine?” She once again demanded confirmation.

“Everything will be fine, as long as you keep it to yourself.” Michael allowed worry to creep on to his face, “The rest of my co-workers won’t be so understanding about me befriending a human. I don’t want to know what they’d do to you if they found out you knew.”

That wasn’t even a lie. His co-workers would definitely be prissed off if they became aware that Eleanor knew this much.

~0~

“...As my good friend, Misha said, in his angelic role, ‘My people skills, are a bit rusty’ why, it’s been weeks since I last held a little get together.”

“Does she ever shut up?” Eleanor groaned.

Sometimes, Michael had to wonder whether Eleanor’s less than saintly outbursts were accidental or whether she was trying to gradually ease him into realising that she was truly a bad person.

“Oh, I’m Tahani and I know lots of rich, important people.” She mocked in a false-British accent. He could see Vicky gritting her teeth from across the room. She was still sore about his refusal to let her be Welsh this time around. “But not as many as my loathsome sister.” She resumed. “Toodle-oos, I just have to check that Janet picked the right shade of blood orange for the napkins, red does so overpowers the-”

“Hi there,” Janet chimed.

Eleanor whirled around in surprise, shooing her away, “I told you not to do that. Go away, Janet.”

“Okay.” She responded agreeably, before disappearing.

“Having problems?” Michael asked, maintaining a genial facade. It would seem that Eleanor was still irritated by everyone fawning over the taller human. 

He felt his essence squirm oddly within his skin-suit as he noticed that the bowtie he was wearing perfectly matched Eleanor’s muddy yellow tones and the floaty little strands of turquoise that buzzed around her head.

“Whatever dude, it’s not like you care about my problems.” Her speech was already slurred. He should congratulate Gunner next time he passes him, on getting her drunk so quickly. “If this is hell, at least there’s booze...or is this heaven run by demons?” She placed a hand over his chest, where his heart would be if he were an incompetent human, reliant on a muscle to pump life-juice around his body. “I knew a strip club that totally had that aesthetic...I mean a nunnery.” She corrected with a look of concentration as she tried to monitor the words coming out of her mouth, “Fork it, whatever.”

“Of course I care.” Michael insisted, at her look of disbelief he held a hand up, gesturing to her to wait for a moment. He turned to address one of the Bad Place Employees; unfortunately, she was secretly listening to ‘Grandma-got-run-over-by-a-reindeer on her iPod. He’d already told everyone that such a poor music taste was suspicious in the Good Place. Truly there were some things you just didn’t miss about home.

He returned to his sceptical human, still swaying slightly where she stood and using one of the sculpted pillars for support.

“Well, where are the fireworks, where’s your hellfire and pitchfork?” She mocked. “It all seems a bit tame for hell.”

“I would never do something that obvious.” He reprimanded her, _some people have no finesse_. “You wanted Tahani knocked down a peg, just watch.”

The human’s colours flickered to Getting-Out-Of-A-Parking-Ticket-By-Flirting; her intrigue was eucalyptus-rhubarb scented.

Standing close to her was beginning to make him feel dizzy.

Michael marched up on the stage and graciously accepted the microphone from Tahani. “Everyone, I have an announcement to make. A new soul has recently passed away on Earth that I thought would be the perfect fit for this neighbourhood.”

Tahani clapped her hands together in delight, “Hurrah. I wish you’d have told me sooner. The decor does not suit the theme of a friendly little welcoming soirée.” Michael suppressed the newly acquired impulse to roll his eyes, as silly as it looked it was beginning to feel natural.

_That should alarm him._

He gave little thought to the colours exploding around Tahani, they were garish and vapid, nothing like the deeper and subtle shifts he observed in Eleanor when he thought of a new way to provoke her.

“Ah yes,” he beamed. Casting a look down to the crowd, he held his hand out in a sweeping gesture to introduce the ‘newcomer’ that had been hiding among them. “In fact, you already know her, Tahani.” Jemima from the Sentient Sand Drowning Department stepped up onto the stage in her newly crafted human-suit. “I have the pleasure of introducing Kamilah Al-Jamil.” Michael turned to Tahani, drinking in her spiteful Orange-And-Rum flashes of despair. “Can I count on you to ensure your sister will be comfortable here?”

The rich human figurehead sucked in a deep breath, familiar flames raged behind her eyes as she pasted on a shaky smile. “Of course Michael, you can count on me to acquaint Kamilah with the neighbourhood. I’m sure she’ll have difficulty fitting in.”

“Wonderful.” He smiled genuinely and briskly departed from the stage to find Eleanor.

“Oh, Tahani, blood orange and gold leaf hanging decor?” Jemima swept her large plaits back and adopted a haughty expression that put Shawn’s I’ve-Cocooned-Everyone-In-A-Five-Mile-Radius look to shame.

“There was a change of plans.” Tahani hissed back. “You’re not even properly attired.”

“This?” The Fake-Kamilah brushed the sides of her topaz gown. “This was the only thing available from the Fine Arts Museum.” A slow smile spread across her face, “I rushed in to apprehend the culprit that was trying to steal millions from Mother and Father’s charity for the orphans in Serbia. They wrapped me in this dress to stem the bleeding. But I’m afraid it was too late for me.”

Michael made his way to Eleanor, watching the drama unfold with wide eyes. “What exactly did you do? That was hilarious!” He thought she was attempting to speak quietly but it came out as an exaggeratedly loud whisper. Not that it mattered, Tahani’s not-so-civil dispute was being bellowed down a literal microphone.

Her appreciation felt strange. It lacked the harsh edges of the endorsement given by his co-workers as they reluctantly took up the task of helping him. The warm glow in his chest didn’t taste like the liquorice-aniseed hollowness that Shawn’s bored approval provoked.

“Kamilah! Kamilah!” Glenn began to holler. His chant was easily picked up by the rest of the Bad Place employees as they begged her to sing for them.

Vicky was silently shooting daggers at him. Which in the case of non-humans was almost literal. Sharp wisps of shadow broke off from the seething cloud around her head and darted forward to jab at him.

Michael casually brushed the arms of his suit jacket as though he were dusting lint from it.

There was vindictive glee in Eleanor’s eyes as she continued to observe Tahani throw continually less subtle jabs at Kamilah before storming off the stage as the crowd demanded an encore from her sister.

Eleanor was full of hazy red-pinks and a shade of Wow-You-Bought-Me-A-New-Car. Heat was positively blazing from her skin as she grasped his arm and yanked him closer out of earshot of the rest of the crowd. He allowed her to manoeuvre him into her personal space, marvelling at how strange it was to let himself be physically manipulated and arranged by the tiny form of this human. He ended up with one arm around her waist, using the other to make more graceful sweeping motions in the air as they swaying awkwardly, out of pace with the peppy pop song being belted out by Jemima.

Even though Jemima had a human skin-suit, it sounded as though she’d taken singing lessons from John Lennon while he was screaming under a mountainous infestation of beetles.

“Dude, why are you flapping your arms like that?” Eleanor scolded, adjusting him. “Where did you even get Kamilah Al-Jamil from? Was she like in some weird cryotank waiting to be woken up?” She grew more and more delighted and he ignored it when she stepped on his toes in her bouncing enthusiasm. “I know. She was preserved in a tank...of her sister’s tears!” She announced, dramatically.

“Not quite,” Michael responded, still amused by the feverish Lavender-Maple-Syrup glee, pouring off her. “I had one of my co-workers-”

“Demons!” She corrected, earning an uncertain look from Tasha (Third-time-winner-of-the-most-flayed-humans-within-a-Bearimy.)

“Co-workers. I had one of my co-workers pose as her using a human-suit replica of the Kamilah from Earth.”

There was something weirdly earnest about the fog of confusion hanging over her as she tried unsuccessfully to make sense of him. “You did that for me...getting revenge on Tahani like that?”

“Torturing humans is my job, Eleanor. It was bound to be her turn sooner or later anyway.” Michael responded coolly.

It didn’t make sense for him to act dismissive of her gratitude; he was trying to cultivate an alliance after all. Why did he feel like he wanted to run away from her?

Eleanor made a thoughtful humming sound. “But you did it for me because we’re friends.” With one hand she reached for his face. His feet decided they no longer wanted to cooperate, keeping him rooted to the spot. **What could you expect from second-rate life-form architecture?**

Eleanor stumbled and bumped into him, letting her hand trail down to stroke over his bowtie.

“So you picked this tasty silver-fox suit, huh?” At his blank expression, she huffed irritably, “What are you working with, underneath all of this..?” She gestured to his body, letting her hand move from his bowtie and brush down past the pockets of his blazer.

Michael didn’t know what to make of her proximity. Given her file, there was a 90% chance that her blood alcohol level had reached the level termed ‘unreasonably horny’ which was difficult enough to distinguish from her resting state of ‘ambient-horniness.’

“I’m a nightmarish horror beyond your comprehension.” He bent his head low to murmur directly into her ear. He felt her stiffen in surprise, her colours immediately flashing from muddy yellow to ruddy amber, he wasn’t sure what emotion to categorise it as. “With dozens of flesh searing tentacles, adorned with razor-sharp teeth that render bone to ash.”

He pulled back, anticipating the sickly pear scented fear and mauve coloured anxiety he associated with her horrified realisations in the past.

That wasn’t the case this time.

“What you’re saying is, you’re like a hot, sexy Cthulhu?”

~0~

“Let’s just get it out there. You already know who I really am don’t you?” Eleanor blurted out. She kept her eyes on the waves lapping at the caster sugar sand. “It’s not like I was doing a great job of hiding it. I’m hardly orphan-rescuer material.”

“You’re Eleanor,” Michael responded. “You’re my friend.”

He tried to arrange his face into a smile, was he showing too many teeth, too little? The soft recoil he earned in response wasn’t awfully useful at narrowing down which version.

“You captured good humans to torture.” Her voice wavered for a moment, sharp sparks of silver wound tightly around her chest. “And you chose to be _my_ friend. What does that say about me?”

“Why does it have to mean anything?” It was difficult to keep a note of bitterness out of his voice.

He shouldn’t feel remorse for the decaying flower scent that drowned out her usual sunshine and sea salt one. It was a good thing that she was miserable, he’d found a way to torture her after all.

It wasn’t like she didn’t deserve it. They all did.

_Perhaps Eleanor Shellstrop was here to torture him instead._

“It has to mean something.” Eleanor insisted, tugging the sleeves of her jumper over her hands to keep them warm. “It just has to, man.”

~0~

“Eleanor! How nice to see you again,” enthused Vicky. “Are you giving a speech today too?”

Michael watched as Eleanor clenched her fists by her side before forcing a friendly smile across her face. Her colours churned unpleasantly and took on a hue of PTA-Nightmare mixed with Lying-About-Santa-Claus-To-A-Young-Child.

“Oh, not me, Viol...Vaness...Valerie?” She stopped and started, “ **Very** good friend of mine,” Eleanor corrected. “I prefer to not be in the spotlight, humility is good for the soul after all.” Her laughter came out strained and Vicky’s disappointment that Eleanor wouldn’t be humiliating herself on stage today was palpable.

The human blinked in surprise as Michael seated himself next to her under the pavilion. Her confession had left them both in an odd position, where neither one of them was sure how to bring up her dreary acceptance of the bizarre situation she had found herself in.

“What’s on the agenda today?” Eleanor muttered under her breath, “Tahani has been taking an extended spa-week to ‘find herself’, thanks to her ‘sister’ upstaging her. So, it’s not like she’ll be around today to tell us about her royal chums, Harry and Will.”

“I wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise.” Michael confided, leaning over his seat. “It won’t be as fun if you know everything that’s going to happen.”

She blew a raspberry at him. “Okay, but seriously, ‘Annual Speech Day.’ If you hadn’t already told me we were in hell I would have figured it out in seconds from that alone.”

“That is a reoccurring problem.” He sighed, ignoring the small frown that crossed her face and the scent of cinnamon wafting off of her.

“Today, I’m here to tell you why I believe the Titans are a far superior team to the Jaguars!” Vicky announced to Jason’s dismay and everyone else’s amusement. Michael shook his head wearily at her basic concept of torture; sometimes you just have to humour your co-workers so you don’t end up being retired.

Eleanor slumped forward in her seat, already zoning out as soon as Vicky opened her mouth. “It feels like 8th-grade presentations all over again.” Seeing that Michael had chosen to ignore Vicky as well, she continued. “I suppose it was tolerable. There was this one girl I went to school with called Amanda Horsley, and when she got nervous she started to rhyme the ends of her sentences.” She shook her head. “What a weird kid.”

“The one from whom you stole a notebook and when she confronted you, you forged dozens of Valentine ’s Day notes on her behalf and incited a fifty-way love triangle?”

Eleanor narrowed her eyes at him. The colours that lurked around her chest area twisted violently and shifted to a shade of I-Know-You’re-Getting-A-Divorce. “Been doing some light reading, have we, bud?”

“I’d never take you lightly Eleanor.”

They lapsed into silence once more. Michael wished that humans were a species without ears, then he wouldn’t have to suffer through Vicky’s operatic representation of her feelings, _on sports of all things._ Who has _feelings_ about sports? Even if it was to torment Jason, who couldn’t say anything in rebuttal without giving up his silent Monk act. Tired of her grating voice he snapped his fingers.

Eleanor’s eyes darted to him immediately; she scowled as he returned her probing look with an innocent smile.

A loud shriek rang out from the front row as several, enormous and tawny, spotted feline stalked towards them with a languid grace that belied their viciousness.

“Did you summon cheetahs?” Eleanor gawped; she grabbed onto his hand and began to lead them further away from the epicentre of the incident, stumbling around over-turned chairs. Her predilection for latching on to him whenever she wished had to stop. He couldn’t be seen being dragged around like the human’s puppet.

Michael resisted for a moment. He was a great deal stronger than Eleanor, _than any human_. A simple twist of his hand in hers and he could snap her wrist like a dry twig. If he grabbed hold of her and ran he could just as easily tear her arm from her socket. She was so weak and yet she acted as though she was somehow protecting him in her own strange way.

He’d let go of her hand in a minute.

As soon as they were safely away.

“They’re jaguars!” He insisted. “You know, like the team.”

Eleanor shrugged and continued to pull him over to a patch of bushes away from the pavilion. “They look the same to me. Why summon jaguars anyway?”

“Vicky was literally giving a speech about them!”

She stared at him blankly. “If you think I was actually listening to whatever drivel she was spouting you need to have a re-read of my file.” For one dreaded moment, her colours flashed back to When-A-Child-Realises-Their-Parents-Are-Wrong-About-Something-For-The-First-Time. He prepared himself for the cunning gleam in her eyes and the blazing heat of her subsequent words. “You know about Jianyu, this whole speech thing was to upset him.”

Michael felt his insides unwind slightly and his skin-suit ceased to feel like it was asphyxiating him. “He shouted Jaguars rule as he ran forward to pet one of them, what do you think?” He scoffed.

~0~

“Is everything alright Chidi?” The human was a swirling ball of kaleidoscopic anxiety, just looking at him made Michael’s head hurt. How was it possible for one human to feel so much emotional conflict?

“I’m fine.” Chidi insisted, rubbing furiously at his glasses with a handkerchief. “Or not fine. I will be fine, I guess it’s no longer my concern or is it?” He marched past Michael and away from Eleanor’s cottage, descending into mutterings about the common good. _The worst kind of muttering._

Finding the door unlocked, he poked his head through the front door. Only to be met with the force of a hardback book, straight to the face.

He staggered backwards in shock; rubbing the bridge of his nose he bent down to pick up the projectile. Michael squinted at the title in disgust. “Confessions, by Augustine of Hippo. That one was a bundle of laughs.” Michael remarked drily. “Is there a reason you’ve taken to assaulting me on sight? If something’s wrong it’s probably Vicky’s faul-”

“Holy shirt!” Eleanor chewed on her lip; lights swam around her head in an apologetic shade of mint green. “Sorry dude, I thought you were Chidi.”

Michael stepped into her living room, handing her back the book cautiously, as though he expected her to swing at him again. “The whole point of this neighbourhood is that torture is supposed to be subtle. If you were intending to help me torment Chidi I simply have to advise you pick a more subtle method than bludgeoning him with a philosophy book.”

“Right,” she responded flatly, “Sure, sure. Do you want to sit?”

Why had he chosen to go with beanbag chairs this time around? Why had he chosen to furnish her cottage with a beanbag _sofa_?

Michael eased himself down onto the elongated beanbag, squished uncomfortably close to Eleanor with her leg pressed against his own. It didn’t make sense that he was hyperaware of how much body heat she was radiating, not when the temperature of his original form would make her touch seem positively frosty in comparison. And yet contact from her sent sizzling waves of _something_ , shooting up through his leg and coalescing somewhere beyond the layers of his human-suit.

He could feel Eleanor's clown paintings judging him.

Maybe Eleanor wasn’t human after all. Upper management probably sent her here to foil his plans and punish him for his hubris. There had to be a rational explanation for why Eleanor Shellstrop unravelled the worlds he created around her, just as surely as he was the one to initiate the reboots.

Hearing the quiet sniffling sound from the human next to him brought his thoughts to a grinding halt.

“Hey, hey, what’s wrong?” Michael turned, the best he could, it was difficult enough to manoeuvre on the beanbag without toppling over.

Eleanor continued to stare ahead, glassy-eyed. “Chidi’s been covering different stances on the afterlife.” She sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, noticing that Michael’s attention was firmly on her; she discarded the book and reached for his hand. This time he let her without any resistance. “There’s this ash-hole, Hick, that says ta-da, everyone no matter what gets universal access to heaven...no hell. Then there’s Augustine that thought anyone who didn’t believe in Christianity was destined for...” She made a thumbs down motion, “But it all seems too silly, put in the perspective of all _this_ , Chidi just keeps piling all of these books on me that are talking about hell and redemption, like he’s trying to scare me or something.” She let out a sniff. “It’s just too much.”

Petrichor was normally a delightful smell all on its own. But now he hated it for denoting her sadness.

Michael squeezed her hand in his own, no longer taking stock of how fragile it was but how it fit perfectly in his own larger one, how Eleanor kept reaching for his touch like a particularly persistent magnet.

“You don’t need any of that nonsense Eleanor. You don’t need ethics or lectures on how to be a good person,” he urged her. How could she? She was exactly where she was supposed to be. Not good enough for the real Good Place but far too precious to be allowed anywhere near the dungeons, basements and boy band producing studios of the Bad Place.

“So what if you’re an ‘Arizona Trashbag.’ He immediately internally cursed himself for the desire to form air quotations. “I don’t care if you think you should be a better person. I’m not going to let anything harm you, ever. I’ll never expect you to be anything that you’re not.” Michael promised, earnestly.

At last, her large watery eyes, leaking some other type of human juice, peered out at him beneath wet lashes. She released his hand only to lean into him and bury her head against his chest. Her human moisture was seeping into his clothes. He should be disgusted, outraged even. None of that stopped him from reaching out and wrapping his arms around her waist, to more firmly cocoon her against him.

“He acts like it’s easy to decide to be good.” She mumbled into his shirt. “But he’s never made a solid decision in his life. He made me write a paper, weighing up the values of Hick’s and Augustine’s arguments like they even really matter. They were both wrong.”

Michael rested his chin on the top of her head, wracking his brains for any light-hearted trivia he could use to alleviate her sorrow. “Both of them are suffering horribly in the Bad Place anyway, you don’t need to be concerned about them. Augustine is force-fed pears in reparation for the one he stole in his youth. And Hick has to listen to audiobooks about Augustine and Irenaeus on a constant loop.”

She sniffled again and pulled back her damp face, her head was within a swirling nebula of colours like The-Feeling-You-Get-When-You-Hear-A-Song-That-Encapsulates-Your-Entire-Life mixed with echoes of This-Is-My-Shrimp-You-Can’t-Have-It.

Clumsily she hovered over him, shooting him a shaky smile. “You have a really weird way of comforting people, you know?” She leant down further to press her mouth to his forehead.

Eleanor had pressed her food-hole to his face.

Surely now he should be filled with the instinct to flee, after suffering the indignity of having her various human fluids coating him.

It was warm and yes, wet. But it was Eleanor and her proximity made him light-headed and disturbingly euphoric. The motion had been gentle, tender almost as she drew back, half-perched on his lap, grinned at his stunned expression with that wicked smile of hers.

“I guess since we’re a team, we should come up with a revenge plan together,” Eleanor commented.

_Oh._

In that moment she was radiant and he was terrified.

“Maybe we could hang out at the arcade for a bit first?” She offered, almost shyly, tucking a wayward strand of her hair out of her face.

“Of course,” he swallowed loudly, feeling his human-suit malfunction grievously. How was it possible to not have a heart and at the same time feel like you’re experiencing coronary failure?

_It was a frightening prospect to know that you would willingly do whatever was asked of you, no matter the consequence._

~0~

“What the fork is your problem? You’ve really messed up the stratagem.” Vicky snarled, as she stormed into his office. “You’re supposed to be torturing the humans,” her face screwed up for a moment in distress, “You’re face is really-really dumb.”

“That last one wasn’t even a proper rhyme,” Michael chided. “I’m sure you can do better.”

“It was bad enough you wouldn’t let me play Kamilah, instead you let Jemima, the literal hellish gorilla.” Her eyes narrowed in contempt before noticing the ugly yellow toy sat in the Architects lap, he seemed to be petting it like a knock of James Bond Villain. “Assonance is a thing, this whole fake friend scheme,” She snapped her fingers in front of his face, “Is so cringe.”

“Nerd alert.” He remarked, smiling fondly as he recalled Eleanor blowing Chidi off after seeing the size of her assigned reading list. “I have everything under control. Surely you can put up with your temporary rhyming-sickness.” You would think that he’d dunked Vicky in a hive with bees-with-teeth. “As long as I remain on good terms with Eleanor, the other humans will remain none-the-wiser about their situation.”

Vicky looked as though she was contemplating remaining silent to deprive him of being able to revel in her misfortune. **But that would be too much to ask.** It was easy to forget that beneath the tiny form of her human-suit, she was a colossal viper with a thousand scorpion tails and a tongue made of living sulphur.

“This attempt won’t work either, you filthy mouth-breather.” She put her hands on her hips and let out an annoyed sigh, “Fix what’s wrong, or I’ll call Shawn you ding-dong!”

Her ability to insult had remained intact, _such a pity_. It was good while it lasted; after all, it only made sense that he demonstrate his willingness to torture other residents apart than the four humans or Eleanor would get suspicious.

And hadn’t Eleanor gotten a kick out of watching Vicky’s make-up speech turn out horribly wrong. Almost as much as she enjoyed it when he had told Chidi that he alone was best suited to handle the Tahani-Kamilah feud, that his final decision would lead to one of them being removed from their neighbourhood for good.

Eleanor’s colours had turned to a shade of Watching-Someone-Fall-Down-The-Stairs-Into-A-Trashcan. Michael had never seen anything more mesmerizingly stunning than the sly little grin she shot him as they watched the neighbourhood descend into chaos once again.

At least Eleanor appreciated his ideas, unlike some people.

~0~

“Did St. Augustine really go to the Bad Place, just for stealing a pear?” Eleanor stared at the fruit machine with a conflicted expression as the fruit in question flashed past.

“Amongst other things, like the persecution of heretics.” Michael reasoned, “But mostly the pear thing. Nature’s worst fruit, it really sets you back into the minuses.”

Eleanor frowned at him. “That’s all it really took. What other petty criteria gets you sent downstairs?”

He didn’t like the troubled inflection in her voice. They were supposed to be having fun, not contemplating the insignificant details of a perfect afterlife system.

The Architect disguised the sound of the snap of his fingers, beneath a cough.

Three cherries lined up in a row on the machine in front of his human. With a triumphant whoop of excitement, Eleanor beamed at him and started to stomp around in a victory dance, dragging him forwards to join her.

~0~

“Hey Janet,” Michael called out, he leaned his elbows on the desk lazily with his sleeves rolled up. The air was unusually balmy today considering the neighbourhood thermostat was normally set to a much lower temperature. But Eleanor had been looking a tad morose lately, and scorching summer heat tended to evoke pleasant memories of her trips to the water park and the time Dennis Nash had puked in the pool.

“Hi there,” Janet greeted, beaming at the Architect.

“How many times has Chidi complained about having a stomach-ache since he’s been here?” He shot Eleanor a sharp grin, expecting the human opposite him to return it. Instead, he was perplexed by her continued melancholy.

“Sixty-four times,” she confirmed, “Although if you wish to include the number of times he has clutched at his abdomen without verbalising his pain then it would reach approximately one-hundred-and-eighty-six times.”

“Thank you, Janet, that will be all.”

She shot a thumbs-up before dematerialising back into her void.

“I’m making a graph, you see.” He confided. The air shimmered oddly before a holographic image of a line graph filled the space above his desk. “I have to make sure there are even intervals between each occurrence. What was that Utilitarian mumbo-jumbo about maximising pain over pleasure? Well, we’ve got to spread it all out so he doesn’t get overwhelmed.” Surprisingly his graph didn’t provoke more than a slight swirl in the grey haze seeping out of Eleanor’s chest.

“It’s actually pleasure over pain, there’s this thing called hedonic-calculus. It’s not as hot as it sounds.” She tacked on; her briefly animated face lapsed back into moody contemplation.

“Well, thanks for the lesson, Professor Nerd-Butt.” He mocked. “I didn’t realise you were still letting Chidi lecture you about ethics.”

“I’m not.” Eleanor corrected. She turned distractedly to gaze out of the window, “Chidi’s said he wouldn’t teach me anymore unless I proved I was taking it seriously.”

“Well, since you’re no longer going to be hanging around with him, we have more time to plan our next move.” He watched her eagerly, hoping this would finally lead to a reaction of some kind. He couldn’t say he was disappointed that he wouldn’t have to share her attention any more. “Any ideas?”

She had fun, didn’t she? They’d both laughed over Chidi’s paralysing frustration, Jason’s poor facade of tranquillity and Tahani’s bitter rivalry with Fake-Kamilah.

All they had to do was come up with a new way to torture the humans, that always made him feel better when he was down.

Eleanor just sighed; her eyes flickered to him briefly before becoming fixed to the top of his desk. “I dunno...outlaw jalapeño poppers, or something?”

“That seems a bit tame.” Michael chided. He’d give her a pass; she was relatively new to the torture game. “I’ve been working on an idea for Tahani; she’s been planning another get together to spite her sister. I was thinking we could-”

“Maybe we should give Tahani a break.” Eleanor interrupted. Her colours were sickly and pale, swimming around her lackadaisically. He didn’t think it was possible to get ill in his neighbourhood; maybe he should get Janet to look into it. “Go bother Glenn...or better yet, Vicky again or something.”

“Why should we give Tahani a break?” He was genuinely intrigued; Eleanor hated Tahani and had had little opportunity to bond with her this time around.

Eleanor twisted her hands together and started to pick at the skin around her nails. Why did humans have such fragile flesh? He wanted to reach over and stop her, nothing was supposed to harm her here, not even herself.

“I just think she’s been through a lot.” Concern rang out from her voice. “She was crying before, like all over me. I’m not really one for comforting people, even if they’re tall, graceful gazelles, but she has some major baggage with her sister. Her parents sound like total deck-heads.”

That strange squirming feeling in the pit of his chest started up again, as her words washed over him and left icy chills tracing the surface of his skin-suit.

“That is rather the point. Tahani is here to be punished.” Michael argued.

“No, she isn’t.” Eleanor rebuked, “You said she was a good person. The only reason she’s being punished is because you want her to be.”

Michael buried his face in his hands in frustration, emitting a low growl of annoyance. “I can’t keep going after Vicky. Besides, Tahani is a narcissistic fraud, that spent her life helping others to earn her parent’s approval. She’s hardly the virtuous type.” He pointed a finger at her accusingly, “And I’m not the only one that wanted to make her suffer, you were on board with it a few months ago.”

“You’re awfully quick to defend Vicky.” Eleanor spat, a greasy wave of chartreuse radiated out from her throat area and curdled into a hue of When-You-Accuse-Your-Significant-Other-Of-Having-An-Affair. “Is she also one of your special human _friends_ you can’t bring yourself to torture?”

Michael started to tug on the bowtie around his neck, feeling it constrict around his throat. “If you want me to torture Vicky, I will.” He huffed; **it wasn’t much of a hardship.**

“Or maybe...” There was a brilliant spark in her eyes, a deadly spark that sent a thrill of fear up his spine. “She’s one of your demon buddies, helping your little neighbourhood run smoothly. That would explain why she’s always glowering at me,” she rationalised. “In fact, the other day she told me she hoped that my friendship with you wasn’t distracting you from your duties.”

_That little bench._

“Eleanor-”

He had to stop her now, the colours swirling around her were gaining in vibrancy and the words she spoke began to burn as they hit the surface of his human-suit with deadly accuracy.

“Come to think of it, the only people you’ve been targeting are Tahani, Chidi and Jason. You only annoy Vicky when I ask you to. How many demons did you say were running this neighbourhood?”

“A handful. Just listen-”

And there it was, that damnable shade of When-You-Realise-Your-Parents-Are-Wrong-For-The-First-Time. Eleanor’s eyes grew wide; the legs of her chair let out a loud screech as she skittered backwards and rose from her seat. The desk between them had never felt like such a large distance before.

“This is the Bad Place.” 

The words lashed across his face like a mighty slap. “You didn’t steal a load of ‘good souls’ and highjack a corner of heaven.” She jeered, “You said it yourself, that Tahani was a bad person, so she deserved to be punished. You already know that Jason isn’t who he claimed to be, **just like me**.” Eleanor’s voice was shaking by this point. Michael didn’t know why that hurt more than the times that she looked victorious when uncovering his lies. “I don’t know what Chidi’s ever done, but I can tell that you really despise him for some reason.”

Michael stood up swiftly to close the distance between them. He couldn’t help but falter at the way she flinched upon his approach.

“You know what, Jason was right. This is some weird-ash reality TV bullshirt. Was this whole thing your own messed up Truman Show? Specially made with your cast of demons.” She finished with a dramatic levity that she certainly didn’t feel.

Michael cleared his throat. “To be fair, my real form is six-thousand feet tall. So my handfuls are technically very large.”

“You said that you’re a squid. Your real form doesn’t even have hands!”

“Exactly!” He argued back. “It’s not my fault if I made an underestimate.”

“No, no, no. We’re getting sidetracked.” Eleanor sucked in a deep breath and began to pace. It could be worse; she could be actively fleeing from his office. “You lied to me.”

The softness of those words managed to hit harder somehow. The sickly scent of pomegranates and pears were making his head swim.

“I didn’t lie about anything that mattered.” He reasoned. “I did want to be friends. You can’t tell me you would be on board for joining the ranks of three-hundred-and-eighteen ‘demons’ as you call them. We were just doing our jobs, torturing you lot; we just get the names and numbers of all the bad deeds you do on Earth.” Michael swiped a plant off the lower bookshelf, “You humans really suck.”

Eleanor cringed away from the shattered pottery. “So what, you thought you’d torture me by making me feel guilty about helping you hurt the other humans here.” She spoke bitterly. “Nice job man, really nice job. You got me good.”

“No, of course not,” Michael insisted. He reached for her shoulders, just wanting her to remain still for a moment. She twisted in his grasp violently, so he relented with a sigh of discontent and released her. At least she was actually looking at him now. “I didn’t want to fight you this time. I really did enjoy all of the time we spent together.” He could tell that she remained unconvinced by the brown spirals twisting around her shoulder blades and the sharp lemony disapproval. “You were the one human that I didn’t want to torture.”

As soon as he had spoken it out loud he knew for certain that it was true. His whole friendship charade had culminated into something painfully genuine that he sought to protect even at the cost of the experiment’s integrity.

“I can fix all of this,” Michael muttered to himself. He raised his hand, the placating gesture turned insidious as he brought his thumb and middle finger together.

Eleanor instantly reached forward, grabbing his hand before a deafening snap could ring out. “Don’t you dare!” She hissed. “I don’t know what you’re planning but I don’t like it.”

The sharp tang of ozone in the air felt as though it were singeing his nostril hair. Angry flashes of betrayal mixed with a putrid shade of We-Need-To-Talk. The way she pressed her other hand to her chest, the centre of the frenzied maelstrom of emotions, made him wonder whether she was aware of their substance and how watching her agony, filled him with an acute pain of his own.

Her tiny human hand, full of delicate muscles and breakable tendons, the strength behind it was nothing, yet it stopped him in his tracks, just as it had done so every time before.

“Just let go, Eleanor.” He said quietly. “We can start all over again. It will be different next time.”

“What do you mean next time?” He hated the distrust in her eyes, but he could make it all go away in a matter of seconds.

“I’ll reboot the neighbourhood again.” He carefully tried to extricate his hand from hers but she was having none of it, clinging ever tighter. “I’ll befriend you earlier on. I’ll make it so you never sit through one of Chidi’s tedious classes. We can be friends again.” The fervent plea of his words fell on deaf ears.

“Again,” she croaked out, her eyes were leaking again, shimmering trails of fluid ran down her face. He had the odd instinct to reach out and brush them away but he knew the gesture would be unwelcome. “You’re not my _friend._ How many times have you done this to us?”

“A han-”

“If you say a handful, I’ll forking kill you!” Eleanor snapped.

“What would you have me do?”

“I don’t-I-” Her face screwed up in distress. “I need to tell the others, we have to find a way to stop all of this. It’s not fair on them.”

“Fair? The whole point of this is that it’s fair.” Michael insisted, “You all committed the crimes on Earth that racked up your point total to way below the minimum fit for the Good Place.”

“Oh yeah, like being French or eating stupid pears is enough to send you to hell?” Eleanor mocked, “Don’t try to tell me what’s fair after you lied to my face over and over again.”

“Just let me fix it.” He begged. “Next time I’ll tell you everything from the beginning. There’ll be no lies, no mistrust, nothing.”

Feeling her hand slacken in shock he managed to pull it away without harming her. Her colours were bleeding all over the place like open wounds, leaking and spilling into the air. Their stains painted him in their misery.

“So that’s it then. You’re just going to kill me.” Her words came out hollow.

His hand hovered in the air awkwardly. All it would take would be one more snap and she would be smiling at him again, blissfully ignorant of all this turmoil. Why was it so hard to make his digits cooperate?

“You’re already dead, Eleanor. I wouldn’t be killing you.” He insisted. “It won’t hurt at all.”

The harsh broken laughter that came out sounded like she’d been gutted. “Well, I hope you remember the way you betrayed me. I hope that it hurts you.”

His hand wavered against his own will. _What was she doing to him?_ How could her blotchy, sticky face, so human and other from anything he’d ever known make him falter?

“What do you **want** from me?” If he had lungs they would have collapsed with the force of his heavy exhale, full of a weariness that had accumulated over centuries. He would do anything to keep her here, to make her look at him like she used to. And there was such an easy solution within his grasp; **all he had to do was take it.**

Why did the thought of erasing this iteration of her fill him with the same sickening horror as the prospect of retirement? This Eleanor was his Eleanor. She was supposed to be _his_ friend this time around; he didn’t want to give that up for anything.

Very deliberately, Eleanor reached out and laced her fingers with his own, keeping them entwined. Tight enough that he could feel the contact but easy enough to slip between them if he chose to.

“I **want** better than this.” Her eyes blazed with fury and he could feel his knees weaken under her wrath. “And if you’re my friend you would want better for me too, and for everyone else that I care about.”

“Anything,” he breathed out.

He’d fall to his knees at her command and lavish words of worship upon her, every second of the day. He'd slay his kin and gratefully march himself onto the surfaces of a dozen obliterating suns if she so much as indicated it was her desire for him to do so.

Eleanor’s muddy yellow aura was golden. She was alight like something divine and the only thing keeping him tethered to this reality and this moment was her touch.

Michael thought that his human-suit was going to spontaneously combust when he witnessed her slow, wicked smile beneath the gossamer of her sorrow.

Her linked fingers tightened around his own and he knew himself lost.

“We’re going to need a plan.”

**Author's Note:**

> This ended up a lot more dramatic than it was originally going to be. I was just going to get Michael to snap at the end and have his reboot be #802 where he teams up with all the humans, but I didn't want to erase this Eleanor. 
> 
> Ha, ha, I've fallen into Hellstop hell and I can't get up...send help...
> 
> I kinda wanted Queen of Hell Eleanor, but her character wouldn't let me go that way, oh well


End file.
